


Hypocrisy

by lonelywalker



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:22:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Senator Kelly and Henry Gyrich have a late night at the office.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypocrisy

There seems to be a fog in the room; the LCD screen of his laptop has burnt blind spots into his eyes, and, despite the caffeine and glucose loading his body, his brain has done nothing productive for the last half hour.

Senator Robert Kelly leans back in his office chair, and rubs his eyes with a thumb and forefinger wedged underneath his glasses. Bed is a long way away, and the morning seems frighteningly close. Not so many years ago, when he spent his days surrounded by lawbooks and legal precedents, he could have powered through a night like this. He could have been brilliant, and gone to court high on adrenaline rather than coffee and aspirin. He could have won, too. He used to win all the time.

Kelly shuts the laptop with an abrupt click, trying to escape the glare of the screen for a moment. All of the lights seem eerie at this hour: ghosts caught in a lantern. He hopes it’s only his eyes that are blurred.

The door at his back creaks open, and he straightens up, pretending to be much more alert than he feels. “I was about to send out a search party.”

Henry Gyrich smiles, and holds up a sheaf of paper. “This just came through the fax. I had to wait to copy it… Apparently our friends down the hall wrecked the Xerox. Again.”

“Ah.” It’s a familiar joke, but Kelly chuckles anyway. Anything is funny at this time of night. Gallows humour. He used to thrive on the anxiety, the nerves before a speech. Now he simply feels rattled. _You’re getting too old for this, Bobby_. But he shakes his head. “The police report I asked for?”

“Oh yes.” Henry seems just as enthusiastic as he had been when he was an unpaid volunteer two campaigns ago. A good-looking, fresh-faced kid just out of law school with passion to burn. Kelly had appreciated his motivation even then. Henry stands, his back to the desk, and reads as Kelly closes his eyes, ostensibly in thought. “Doctor Jean Grey. MD from Hudson, as you’d expect. Couple of published papers on mutation and the resulting psychological effects. I think you read them?”

Kelly nods without opening his eyes. “Only a couple?”

“She’s young. It’s a nascent field.” Henry turns pages. “Not so long ago, writing about mutation would get you laughed out of any serious journal. She’s not even a researcher at a university. She’s a teacher at some kind of prep school in Westchester.”

“If she can handle pubescent kids she can handle anything.” Kelly pauses for a moment, and then his eyes open, his expression suddenly suspicious. “What kind of prep school?”

Henry meets his gaze. “Gifted kids…” It only takes him a second to catch onto Kelly’s train of thought. “ _Oh_. Well, maybe. A school for mutants? There must be more of them than we thought.”

“There could be thousands. Millions, even.” Kelly sighs. “It’s like a cancer. Mutations of healthy cells, of the kids of completely normal parents. The theory is that we caused this, with our Cold War radiation, with our nuclear power plants. We made evolution go in a direction it was never meant to take.”

Henry taps his fingers on the paper. “Pity might be a good angle. These are sick kids. They need to be treated?”

“Oh, yes. Of course they need to be treated. But that’s not the issue.” Kelly sits up, planting his elbows on the desk, massaging his neck with both hands. “These people are dangerous, especially the children. Would I let my daughter play around with a gun? Would you give your nephew a car? Of course not. They’re not responsible enough. Not mature enough to handle something that powerful. They’d hurt themselves and hurt others. Yet people like Jean Grey think we should let mutant children run wild with amazing powers in their hands.”

“Dead kids on the news… It’s powerful stuff,” Henry says, and for a moment he sounds almost enamored with the thought. “Your wife called, by the way. It was Beth’s play last night.”

“I know…” Kelly mutters, and opens up the laptop again with a weary gesture, trying to focus. “I’ll call in the morning.” The words on the screen might as well be gibberish. “Before the hearing, I want you to check back with Stryker and Trask. I want names, not all that vague crap they tried feeding me the last time. I can fight this on fear and emotion if I have to, but I’d prefer the facts.”

Henry smiles. “It’s getting late,” he says without looking at his watch.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry Henry.” Kelly clears his throat. “You should get some sleep. I lost track of the time. Did you have plans?”

“I had plans to be right here,” Henry says softly. “And I meant that you should go home. Get some rest. Be fresh for the morning.”

Kelly eyes him. “I’ll be fine. You go ahead. I just have to make some more changes. I’ll be tossing and turning all night if I don’t know it’s perfect.”

Despite the tempting offer to leave, Henry remains, half-sitting on the edge of the desk, turning the papers over in his hands. Kelly does his best to work, or to pretend to work – correcting minor errors, moving words around, shifting them back. At some point he becomes aware that Henry has stopped turning pages, and is looking at him.

“You could have been a model,” Henry says, just as Kelly is raising his eyebrows to question the stare.

Kelly just laughs. “Yes. I think you really do need your sleep, now.”

Henry still gazes at him intently. “I’m serious.”

“I was a gawky teenager, as you well know,” Kelly says, shutting the laptop again with some finality. The night has finally dissolved into silliness, and he’s not in the mood for any more statistics. “You’ve spent enough time with my photo albums.” He takes off his glasses, wiping sweat from under his eyes. “Speaking of which, how are the promos coming? You’ve seen them?”

“I’ve got them on tape. You look great. Very handsome. A man to trust.”

Kelly laughs. There’s something in Henry’s voice that verges on sarcasm. “Well, I hope so.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I’d suggest going out for a drink, but I have to be sober in the morning.”

“You’re always sober.” Henry looks down at him. “Even when I try to get you drunk, you’re always sober.”

Kelly replaces his glasses, as if better eyesight can detect what is strange about Henry’s demeanor. “Is something worrying you, Henry? We can talk…”

Henry reaches out to the knot of his necktie, and pulls it loose with one hand. “You know how I ended up on your campaign, Robert? I was looking for a hero.” His fingers carefully undo the top button of Kelly’s blue shirt, and run down the material. “I saw the tape of you in the seventies. We all did. I saw the photos.” Another button falls open. “Blood all over you, and you didn’t give up. I never believed in civil rights as much as I believed in you.” His hand sweeps up Kelly’s cheek, and removes the glasses. His gaze lingers. “I’ve wanted you for such a long time.”

Kelly grabs his hand, and pulls him in so close, so suddenly that Henry almost loses his balance. “You didn’t need to get me drunk,” he whispers, and kisses that smart, charming mouth. Henry’s fingers slide through his hair, hand hot against his scalp, the other pulling his shirt free of his trousers. And he realizes that this is so much more serious than a kiss. Of course it is. They’re not teenagers. This isn’t _making out_. “We can go to the hotel,” he says in a whisper made hoarse, “it’s only a few blocks.”

“You think you can wait that long?” Henry isn’t kissing him anymore, but the heat of him is there, and he’s pulling the long, leather belt from his pants. No answer is expected.

Kelly gives in with a surge of youthful abandon. “Lock the door,” he says, and follows Henry as he goes to carry out the order. Dark hair; that tight, lithe musculature, all hidden underneath a dozen designer suits. He’s just as desirable as he was in dirty jeans, making coffee for a hundred people on the campaign trail. Kelly takes off his tie, throws it on the floor. He hopes that more of his clothes will join it there.

“Tell me what you want,” Henry says, closing the blinds, kicking off his shoes.

Kelly knows exactly what he wants. He just isn’t sure that he can put it into words. His eyes trail Henry’s path across the floor, as he undoes his fly. “You’ve… you’ve done this before?”

“I’ve done everything.”

Kelly lets out a breath, long and already ragged. He can well imagine the firm, taut body beneath that suit. His prick pushes against his fingers. “Take off your pants,” he says firmly. His Senatorial voice, he realizes, and can’t help smiling. If only they knew.

Henry leaves them on the floor, pulling down his briefs a moment later. His prick is large, cut, and achingly hard, proudly displayed beneath the fringe of his shirt. It’s everything Kelly could have imagined. Kelly grips his own shaft and breathes in with the pleasure of it. He nudges the laptop aside on the desk. “Sit down,” he says, and, “why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You didn’t need me before.” Henry pulls himself up on the desk, sitting on wood and paper, planting his feet on Kelly’s chair, toes nudging Kelly’s legs. He leans forward to cup Kelly’s head in both hands. “I think you need me now.”

Kelly kisses him with the hunger of years ago, too tired to be restrained. It would take far too much effort to resist this. “Henry…” His hand slips down Henry’s ribs, over the lines of muscles too defined for someone who spends all his days at a desk. Just what he had imagined. Henry is pulling his hair, jerking his head back to kiss his throat, and Kelly’s hand is wrenched down to Henry’s groin. Dark and hot and sweaty. His fingers curl into the hair and search out that beautiful prick.

“Mmm,” Henry moans and arches his back, releasing Kelly for a moment. He grips the edges of the desk and thrusts his hips forward a little. Kelly is watching his own hand circling Henry’s prick, watching himself jerk Henry off. It should have happened years ago. All those years of wanting… His own erection feels wet, sticky. He winces when he squeezes it.

Henry’s hand is a gentle pressure on the back of his head. “Here,” Henry says, and Kelly bends in to lick the tip of Henry’s prick. His tongue feels dry. He’s been breathing too quickly. He lowers his head, almost childlike, resting his head against Henry’s thigh, kissing the crease between limb and torso, feeling the pulse of arousal.

When he does take all of the prick in his mouth, Henry pushes inside him with such insistence that he almost chokes. But his hands are on Henry’s hips, steadying him, calming him. _It’s okay_ , he thinks, trying to calm the panic-desire in his own mind. It’s been so long…

Henry is whimpering, whispering his name with every tempered thrust, with every flick of Kelly’s tongue. On another night, Kelly knows he would enjoy torturing the young man a little more, but it’s the desperation of his own arousal that breaks his restraint. He just needs to come.

It doesn’t take long.

His muscles tighten, and his semen spills out over his hand as he closes his eyes and screams a silent, paralyzed scream for the joy of release. Henry is panting, breathless, as Kelly tastes him. “Oh Robert,” he says, and Kelly has little idea whether the words are a whisper or a shout.

He’s shivering as he buries his head against Henry’s thigh, feeling the echo of his hot, rapid breaths. Henry stays where he is, until Kelly can feel his breathing steady a little. Fingers lazily stroke the nape of his neck.

“Do you want…” Henry stops, still gasping for breath, and laughs. “Do you want to come home with me? It’s closer… and I can make sure you sleep.”

Kelly laughs too, and raises his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think you’ve done anything but. Pass me the tissues, would you?”

He cleans up what he can with the Kleenex. A shower and the dry cleaner will have to do the rest. At least it’s late, and anyone seeing him might simply assume that he’d been fucking an intern. It seems to be the thing to do around these parts. Re-fastening his trousers, he leans back and squints at his watch. “Time to leave, I think.” His body doesn’t want to cooperate, but he stands up with numb legs, and searches for his glasses.

Henry holds them out. Of course he does. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Yes.” Kelly scratches his head, the hearing having been forgotten. “You’ll talk to Stryker?”

“First thing,” Henry smiles, hopping off the desk, picking up his trousers.

Kelly falters, looking at him. It’s all too normal. It should be extraordinary. “I… We’ll do something at the weekend, once I’ve got the campaigning out of the way.”

Henry has a knowing expression. “I’m always here.”

Dressed, they switch off the lights, lock the door from the outside, and start to talk about numbers for the upcoming vote. Everything is sliding into place. Kelly drapes a paternal arm around Henry’s shoulders, and laughs with him.

***

 _Mr. Gyrich has been dead for some time…_

The stainless steel chair is sticking to his skin in the cold: hands and ankles restrained by more than metal. Kelly blinks furiously and can still see nothing. They had taken his glasses, and now the light from that… _thing_ has left him dazzled and nauseated. _Radiation poisoning_ , he thinks without any humor. They’re going to kill him. Maybe they already have. His throat is dry, his head still aching from where the woman had kicked him. He probably has a concussion. But, then, he doubts he’s ever going to make it to any hospital. So much for diagnoses.

Maybe he’ll be a martyr for the cause. If they find him… if they find Henry… The Mutant Registration Act will go through. He’ll be a hero. He’ll have won his war. Kelly tries to shift position in the chair, and even that simple motion makes bile rise in his throat.

All things considered, he’d prefer not to be a hero.

The woman returns for him, alone, and he studies her with unusual interest. Blue skin. Scales. It’s horrible, freakish, but he’s never seen a mutant up close like this. The thought occurs to him that she’s naked.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asks, his breath like smoke.

Her lips part to reveal a pearly smile. “I’ve suffered worse,” she says pointedly.

The cuffs around his arms and ankles snap open, but he has no energy to even contemplate escape. Besides, he’s alone and unarmed in the middle of nowhere, with these mutants… all of them could kill him with a thought. Suddenly debating Jean Grey seems like a tempting alternative.

“Can you walk?” the woman asks, and Kelly wonders if there’s even a hint of concern in that strangely-modulated voice. Perhaps she’s only worried about whether she’ll have to carry him.

He grasps her hand, and levers himself up, a little surprised in the back of his mind that the blue color doesn’t come off like paint from a child’s skin. _Beth…_ He’s never going to see her again.

A wave of grief and nausea almost knocks him off his feet, but the woman catches him, steadies him. “It’ll pass,” she says.

Her hand is on his back as he walks, a little falteringly, towards the immense round exit that seems to have been hollowed out of the rock. “What did you do to Henry?” he asks, resigned, grasping onto whatever information he can. He turns to meet her yellow eyes. “Did he suffer?”

“Believe what you want,” she says. “It’s better that way.”

 _Jesus_. Kelly stops for a moment in the passageway, trying to steady his thoughts. “And you… How long have you been pretending to be him?”

Her smile is unnerving, as she bends close to his ear. “You could have been a model,” she says in Henry’s voice, and pushes a hand into his back. “Maybe you will be.”

Kelly stumbles on in front of her. The tears seem to freeze in his eyes.


End file.
